A Role Model for Others

Rosa Parks insightfully said, “Each person must live their life as a model for others.” Like her, I believe that everyone serves as a role model for someone else; they might not know it, but they do. A lot of younger siblings look up to their older brothers and sisters because they want to be just like them. I looked up to my older sisters when I was younger, and I still do today.

When I was in 3rd grade, I would sneak into my older sister’s room when she wasn’t home. I would try on her clothes and put on her make up. I looked up to her, and I wanted to be exactly like her. When she let me wear her clothes or offered to do my hair in the morning before school, I was the happiest little girl ever. Wearing her clothes or having her do my hair the way she did her hair made me feel special. I went to school and told all my friends that I was wearing my sister’s clothes, and they thought it was the coolest thing ever. I copied everything my sister did and it probably annoyed her at times, but she didn’t make a big deal out of it.

I looked up to my sisters, and I am pretty sure my younger sister and younger cousins look up to me. I learned to live my life as a good role model when my little cousin repeated a word I had said. When I was babysitting my baby cousins one day, I accidently dropped a glass plate on the floor and yelled out a curse word. My little two year old cousin heard me and started saying the word. I tried to stop him from saying it and told him it was a bad word. Every time he did something bad, we would put him in timeout, so he told me I should go to timeout since I had said a bad word. I ended up going to timeout in the corner, because it was the only way to make him stop saying the curse word. That day, I realized that we are all role models and we don’t know when the people who look up to us are watching.

Today, I try to live my life as a role model for others all the time. I don’t want to do anything bad in front of my younger cousins, and I don’t want to disappoint anyone. I hope other people can realize that they are role models. I hope they look at all the people they look up to or the people who look up to them. We are all role models for someone, and that is why I have to do what is right all the time. Someone who looks up to us can be watching us when we don’t know they are. That is the reason why I take Mrs. Parks advice and live my life as a model for others. You might not know it, but you are a role model for someone. Everyone is. And this means that we are able to change their lives. It can be in a good or bad way, but we can change their lives.

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This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.